To me, the most important thing for SS3 to have in order to really even have a shot at living up to SS2, is for it to be a really long game and have lots of time spent in various areas of the map. Each time you enter a new area, you should be there a good long while. The total length of the game must be very long so you actually get a chance to see your choices about your character blossom and mean something and then have time to play out.
There have to be calm, slow, creepy periods where there aren't a lot of enemies around too.
It turns out that you can be a perfectly normal, non-violent person who has a great capacity for empathy and kindness and simply be around long enough and experience the right sort of things that you end up being almost completely un-phaseable by anything any sort of media could throw at you.
As I've become more aware of the nasty things that happen in real life, as I've lived longer, and as I've just generally become a very cynical person - I have realized that things which appear in film and games which are still very shocking to other people don't even move my needle. To me it is just quaint that someone would react that way.
Even things on LiveLeak that used to bother me or I had to be careful about when I watched them (am I about to go to bed? am I eating?) no longer have that power. It doesn't matter. None of it bothers me anymore. Well, actually that's not entirely true... I still can't watch beheading videos. Then again, I haven't tried in a long time.
But yea, the idea of GTA V first person being some horrific moral challenge? Lol.
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